


For Being There

by Fluffifullness



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cat Ears, Chimera Edward Elric, Dark, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffifullness/pseuds/Fluffifullness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The figure is clearly tired to the point of exhaustion, and it stumbles back onto the dirt and gravel of the alleyway. Its hood slips down to reveal a small, blonde-haired youth with a feverish tint to his cheeks. Two pointed ears flick nervously above his tangled fringe.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Being There

**Author's Note:**

> Written mid-July 2012 and later edited a bit for posting here. Contains non-graphic or off-screen violence.

_The streets are damp and hazy in the half-darkness of the twilight hours. There aren’t many people out and about, but those that_ are _out on the streets shuffle or scurry along – drained of energy or nervous to the point of constant panic, just depending. A woman with a bag of groceries walks as quickly as she can past dusty alleyways and dark shop windows, her four-year-old daughter in tow. Neither speaks for several moments, but as they near another trash-littered, blood-stained alley, the girl speaks up suddenly._

_“Look, mommy, there’s a person over there! Can I go see? Hey…!”_

_The startled woman turns her head in time to see a small, hooded figure shuffle slowly to its feet – using the worn brick wall as support, head bowed and limbs shaking. She can hear breath rasping in a throat worn raw by screaming._

_The figure is clearly tired to the point of exhaustion, and it stumbles back onto the dirt and gravel of the alleyway. Its hood slips down to reveal a small, blonde-haired youth with a feverish tint to his cheeks. Two pointed ears flick nervously above his tangled fringe._

_The woman’s heart skips a beat, her eyes widen, and her breath catches in her throat. Fear, but why? She grasps her daughter’s hand tighter and takes several steps back before she can really begin to gather her wits._

_“Mommy, that o-nii-chan is sick…”_

_“Just ignore it, Cassie. It’s not safe.” Without another word, the woman drags her daughter past the boy and the alley and the dirt, in the direction of home’s relative safety._

_The blonde’s fever-bright eyes follow the pair until they disappear around a corner. His expression contains an odd mixture of sympathy and anger. He hauls himself to his feet once again and takes several heavy steps back into the deeper gloom of the narrow space between two empty buildings._

_His ears twitch again, just able to detect raised voices and running feet in the distance. He’s not scared anymore, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to die. So, he has to run._

The colonel toys absently with the top button of his uniform, his expression the very picture of impatience.

“And? What’s our situation, Lieutenant Hawkeye?”

His subordinate’s eyes dart up from a heavy sheaf of papers.

“Sir. The soldiers are uneasy. Many of them are clearly against this course of action. I can’t recommend sending them into such a delicate situation as long as they may-”

“I didn’t ask for your advice, Lieutenant, I asked for a report. My subordinate’s life is on the line here, and you can’t _possibly_ be suggesting that I tell his _brother_ to wait because the goddam soldiers don’t feel like getting their hands a little dirty!”

He doesn’t even realize how loud his voice has become until the crack of Riza’s palm stinging against his right cheek brings him back to his senses. “Colonel, if you don’t keep calm, you can’t expect any of those soldiers to do the same – let alone Alphonse-kun.”

Mustang expects no less of Hawkeye, and it’s not as if he doesn’t know how unreasonable he’s being. Her report may not have been impartial, either, but she’s more collected than he is at the moment.

He takes a deep breath in order to steady himself before he begins again. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” hiding his bewilderment behind clipped sentences. “But the matter is no less urgent for that. Please,” willing his strong-willed subordinate to accept just this one bit of foolishness, “spread the word that we’ll begin operations as planned in one hour.”

Riza looks like she wants to argue – even parts her lips as if to begin – but something in his eyes that is coming dangerously close to desperation makes her decide to leave it at that. She salutes briefly before making her way out of the room.

The colonel sighs, seeming to let down his guard as soon as he finds himself alone. He’s certain that Hawkeye must be picking up on his agitation to some extent, but he has nonetheless been doing his best to keep up the appearance of a strong and unshakeable leader.

Until now, he’s never found such a thing to be so difficult. Until now, in fact, he’s never had to pretend not to be panicking. His past experiences – the war, the killing, the screams and the terrified faces of victims-to-be – have helped him through so many awful things since, and not an eye ever batted. A strong, fierce hero – no, not a hero, but a murderer and that still requires a steel will – with all the confidence in the world assuring him that he has what it takes to protect what’s important.

He had to kill, once, and he may well have to kill again. The difference was supposed to be – _is_ supposed to be – that now he can handle it because he’s used to it and because he’s doing it to keep others – his subordinates – from death or injury.

Now, though, he’s not so sure if he can put things right without getting himself or someone else hurt in the process.

That’s probably because, this time, an adversary far exceeding anyone’s expectations is committing atrocities on a whole new level of horrible. An innocent teenager has been caught in the crossfire, and, this time, that teenager is not just some nameless, faceless victim. He’s not a price that must be paid for the greater good of the military, or – hell – even for the sake of the whole damn country. He’s a precious subordinate, maybe even a precious something-more, and Roy Mustang isn’t about to stand by as that subordinate becomes a part of the collateral hastily printed onto some secretary’s report to the military brass.

He doesn’t want to see the last shreds of that child’s naïveté torn apart.

 

Alphonse Elric sits on an empty munitions crate in a room crowded with soldiers preparing for action, gazes out at a rain-drenched city, and wishes.

He wishes that he could take just one deep, calming breath of air or feel cold rain on his face. He wishes, like so many times before, that he could shed salty tears or slip away into a false world where families never find themselves torn apart, where terrible things don’t happen to innocent people.

More than any of that, though, he wishes that he could see his brother again, safe and in one piece.

But that’s not quite it. It’s been too long, too many weeks spent searching for Ed. He doesn’t know if he even cares anymore what shape his brother is in, so long as he can see him, touch him, and finally _know_ …

He may not feel any of the physical symptoms of his stress, but the desperation is there, and it’s real. He’s seen it in the eyes of nii-san’s commanding officer, too, though he knows that the man is doing his best to hide it from his subordinates.

 _The colonel and Ed really are birds of a feather,_ Al thinks. _Always sticking their necks out for others until they stop noticing how much pain they’re in themselves…_

It’s been almost a month now since that argument took place between the brothers in an inn two towns over from the one in which he – and, hopefully, Ed – finds himself now.

The mission had been a deceptively simple one – the Fullmetal Alchemist, accompanied as always by his younger brother Alphonse, was to investigate a series of odd occurrences surrounding an isolated eastern town. Corpses and extreme paranoia hadn’t been included in the briefing, though – not much had, really, because no one seemed to know much of anything – and the situation had only worsened with every day that passed after their arrival.

No people, phone calls, or letters were ever able to make it out of the village, and the cries that echoed throughout the streets at night were not those of ordinary animals. Ed had commented on the grand cliché of it all, but he’d been particularly shaken by their eventual discovery of several villagers’ bodies. There’d been nothing normal about the wounds that littered the corpses like so many ropes – gashes, tears, mouths frozen open in unvoiced screams.

Al, shaken by their discoveries and apprehensive about a situation that was turning very serious very fast, had insisted that Ed should return to HQ for backup. Nii-san had been too stubborn for his own good, though, saying that they couldn’t just leave the town in this much danger. _“Hell, Al, we probably couldn’t leave even if we tried!”_

The argument had ground to a shuddering halt when Al’s threats to return alone prompted Ed to storm right out of the inn and into the quiet of the night.

Four weeks later, it seems that that was a bad move.

Ed struggles to his feet again, yanking his hood up over his ears. The sounds of pursuit are loud enough now that he can hear them easily through the thick cloth of his cloak. It’s strange, though; he’s certain that his pursuers would’ve at least thought to bring a few dog chimeras or something with them, yet they seem to be having a hard time following his trail.

And that’s not all. It’s really difficult to decipher his surroundings through the veil of his worsening fever, but it almost seems like they’re just moving about the town at random. There are a lot of them, they’re not getting any closer to him, and Ed wonders briefly if those bastards are really so incompetent that they can’t track down one little – not little, _not_ , but for argument’s sake – experiment without the help of more than fifty pawns.

Still, if he knows anything, it’s that he’s not about to let those fifty pawns rip him apart – or worse – when they do find him.

He takes several tortured steps forward and gasps as another bolt of pain shoots up from his damaged automail. The ports must have been bent somehow back then… He collapses forward once more and tries to keep quiet as his stomach heaves pathetically and he coughs up a small stream of bile.

As soon as he’s able to, he practically drags himself over to the other side of the alley and leans against the rough brick surface – breathing hard, chest heaving and throbbing and every part of him hurting in one way or another. He can’t ever remember feeling this tired, but he can’t afford to sleep. A few strands of hair fall in front of his eyes, and he watches bemusedly as they fade in and out of focus.

It takes him a moment to realize that he isn’t alone. He jerks his head in the direction of a minute shuffling, then, and has only a fraction of a second to take in the grinning face of a chimera before he finds himself several feet off the ground, held fast to the grimy wall by a clawed hand clamped tight over his pulse-fluttering throat.

“Been lookin’ all over for ya, alchemist,” the newcomer hisses. “Yer friends from the damn _military_ ’ve barged in at just the wrong time, but they’re not gonna find you. I’m gonna make _damn_ sure of that.”

The teen feels the creature’s hot breath on his face, and his eyes widen just enough to indicate that he has registered the monster’s news.

_Al – Al and everyone…_

_Do they know I’m here…? Do they know – it’s dangerous – have to tell them…_

“Crowley. Bastard, don’t tell me you’re gonna keep all the fun to yourself!”

Another chimera, this one slightly more human in appearance, is approaching the two and grinning like a madman. The first one nods amiably back at him and says something that Ed’s oxygen-starved brain can’t quite interpret. He thinks he hears laughter, too, and he feels a few cold drops of rain on his cheeks.

The pain starts after that.

 

The colonel’s eyes are murderous. He yearns to see these bastards burn, but he knows how everyone around him – Hawkeye especially – would feel about that. That’s why he settles for a heavy beating here and a deliberate threat there – flames that crackle at the first layer of skin and blows that don’t quite extinguish consciousness – but not one of the men will talk. Some laugh and others tremble in silent fear, but their red-flecked lab coats and the things found along with them are the only information Mustang’s managed to obtain thus far.

The mission is being executed well, considering the overall reluctance of the soldiers to get involved with the infamous alchemic monsters rumored to be capable of tearing a grown man limb from limb. _Cowards_ , the colonel curses to himself, but he refrains from thinking anything more venomous than that. He’s here, they’re here, and maybe Ed will also be here. Mustang’s going to find him if he is, and that might mean forcing information out of these idiots or it might mean running out there right now and looking on his own.

He can be grateful, at least, that his men have managed to execute their maneuver well enough. They have these people right where they want them, and a good number of civilians have already been evacuated.

He also realizes that the soldiers’ fears are not unjustified. The strength of these chimeras hasn’t been analyzed to any great extent, but it’s already evident that many of them have no problem fighting for the organization that made them into monsters. Mustang imagines that the transmutation and subsequent treatment – torture, dehumanization, pain and cruelty – probably twists them into something… well, less. No conscience, no empathy – just a coarse desire for life at the expense of others. Pleasure in pain that isn’t their own. Petty revenge, petty everything.

He hopes to god that Fullmetal won’t be found in that sort of state. Especially not with his younger brother out there in the midst of all the violence and decay, searching and hoping and _wishing_ …

 

Looking around, Alphonse Elric begins to wonder if the world is coming to an end. The bodies, the crying captives, the death and decay, the fear… It’s all too much for a child at the tender young age of fourteen.

He barrels through the streets, eyes shining red like a summer sunset, hollow legs propelled by fear and concern for his brother. Time loses its meaning. There is nothing but the on-and-off rain and the sharp report of armor on pavement as he does his best to drown out the violence around him.

The gunshots are just beginning to increasing in frequency – to become something impossible to ignore – when he finds the alley.

He almost runs past it before he notices the vague outlines of a couple of chimeras and the sounds of a mostly one-sided scuffle taking place in the gloom. Steeling himself (and no pun intended), he moves into the shadowed area and is just able to make out a small figure lying at the feet of the monsters.

He knows that he doesn’t have time to concern himself with every poor victim he happens to come into contact with – not when his brother might be out there somewhere, possibly enduring worse. But that doesn’t change his naturally kind nature, the twinge of stunned pity and guilt. Telling himself that his brother would want him to save others first, Al steps forward to challenge the two.

“Leave them alone.”

One turns – a dark figure, oddly shaped and eyes glowing in a spot of darker shadows. “Ah? Gotta problem, punk?”

Alphonse nods. “My brother would probably tell you off for being so lame.”

He means to provoke them – doesn’t see the point in telling them that what they’re doing is wrong or that their victim is in bad shape as it is – and it works surprisingly well. The fight doesn’t last long – Alphonse surprising his opponents, as always, with his agility and circle-free alchemy – and the chimeras are underfed and exhausted already. They’re strong, of course, but he can see why they have to resort to picking on the vulnerable rather than on the classic ‘someone your own size.’

He lets them go when they’ve had enough, but he almost feels like chasing them down and finishing the job when he sees the face of the one he’s just saved.

 

Ed gazes through a thick fog of pain as the darkness lifts itself slowly from his consciousness. Someone’s hand is supporting the back of his neck, and he’s pretty sure he hears a familiar voice calling him from a distance.

He blinks dazedly and tries to remember where he is. When it clicks and he recalls the immediate danger, he struggles desperately to get away from the hand – its sharp claws and powerful, bone-breaking muscles, and promise of eventual death. His left arm objects strongly to the movement, and he fails to stifle a shout. The voice grows more urgent.

He knows he has to fight somehow. He has to get away from this place so that he can warn everyone. He has to tell them so that they can stop worrying and prepare, which means that he can’t die here. He can’t leave Al alone, and he has to face someone else as well – a smug smirk, sharp black eyes and a little flutter in his chest.

He hesitates for a moment, then, because those are thoughts that invariably lead him to a familiar worry. Warning everyone means letting them see him as he is now. There’s no other way, he knows, but he wishes that he could somehow avoid the pain of his brother’s disgust, the suspicion and rejection of his friends and colleagues. The look on that man’s face…

He wonders – if he died here, who could really blame him?

He hears the words all at once, then, like a gust of wind and his eyes go wide – “Nii-san! Can’t you hear me?! It’s me, nii-san, it’s Al! _Nii-san!_ ”

His breath catches in his throat. He shakes his head slightly from side to side, not sure what to feel. Joy? Relief? Or maybe sadness? Fear? He blinks a few times and is finally able to make out the wide red eyes of his brother’s armor. Rain is cascading down the sides of his helmet, and Ed remembers first to be worried about the blood seal on the inside.

What should he say to his own flesh and blood, here in a darker world all for the sake of his rescue? Would ‘sorry’ be enough to fix anything? Would ‘thank you’ convey his relief at the beginning of the end of a nightmare? Should he beg his brother to treat him no differently than he would have if he didn’t look like this? His lips move minutely, tracing the shape of his brother’s name.

He remembers too late how futile even that small attempt is. Despite his best efforts, the only sound he is able to produce is a broken moan. The sound is too like the cry of a wounded animal. It scares him probably more than it scares Al, whose grip on his older brother weakens as any number of fragmented thoughts course through his consciousness.

Alphonse waits with a desperate expectancy that hurts Ed worse than the broken bones, the cuts, or the rising fever. “Please, just say something! Anything is fine! I’ve been so scared, nii-san! Please! Just tell me you’re okay!”

Alphonse watches as his brother’s lips part slightly and he draws in a short breath, wincing as a few of his ribs throb in protest. He pauses for a moment, and then exhales softly, his eyes full of apology. He shakes his head once more, this time in a wordless effort to let his brother know what he can’t tell him directly. The pain in his brother’s voice is his fault. He wants to take it away, but he’s never been so powerless to do so.

“Alphonse-kun, it may be best to wait before you ask Fullmetal to take on any more burdens than he already has to deal with.”

Both brothers give a start and turn their attention to the owner of the voice. Ed feels something inside him twist a little when his eyes adjust to the slightly brighter light at the end of the alley – the dark eyes, bright blue uniform and voice full of confident authority. It’s a different kind of pain, but it scares him just as much as – maybe more than – everything else.

The colonel’s eyes are colder than ever.  His voice is clipped – anger, the other two realize immediately, but it’s strange. It’s a sort of rage not often seen on Mustang. On anyone. He’s breathing hard, and Al realizes first that he must have been running. That it’s anger mixed with dread and relief at once.

“Tai-san… You’re right.” He avoids looking down at his brother, while Ed nevertheless continues to stare right on up at him. “I’m sorry, nii-san. For now, you should – just focus on getting your strength back.” He struggles for a moment to find a comfortable position for his brother in his arms – tries not to notice the way Ed bites his lower lip to keep himself from crying out, the quick shake of his head that reassures his little brother that he’s not upset with him. That he’s sorry.

He joins Mustang at the entrance of the alley, and the two hastily set off in the direction of the military’s temporary HQ. The going is slow – can’t walk too fast or Ed will be in that much more agony, and as it is he’s not always all there with them. Eyes open and then shut, rain on blood and dirt and pale skin.

The bedraggled group of three is nearing its destination when Mustang sighs and finally – _finally_ , Ed thinks in a fleeting moment of clarity – hazards a closer look at the kid’s face. A bad cut on one cheek and a lot of built-up grime. He’s not wearing shoes, and he’s lost a lot of weight. _Kid looks pretty damn distraught_ , the colonel thinks to himself. _Of course…_

He’s not sure if he pities Ed right then – doesn’t want to, but pitiful is what his subordinate looks like. He wants to do something for him, but what he’s doing now is everything. What the kid needs is a doctor, but – well, what can Mustang do but try to lighten the mood for his subordinate? Something to distract him from the pain, the humiliation, and the fear.

Of course, it’s not as if he’s feeling particularly buoyant himself, so his attempt turns out to be a rather pathetic one.

“That look suits you, Fullmetal. Don’t you think it brings out more of your cute side?” He’s kicking himself for saying it before he’s even finished the sentence, maybe because it’s hard to take it as a joke when the accompanying smile barely reaches his eyes.

Fullmetal’s expression changes to one of surprise bordering on hurt. Roy doesn’t know what to do when the kid turns his face away from both of them, eyes clouded with too many emotions to count.

(Embarrassed, because he wants Mustang to look at him but the weight of his gaze is somehow uncomfortable anyway. Happy, maybe, because the colonel is uncertain and uncomfortable but still able to interact normally with him. He’s being teased just like always, and that’s almost enough to count as an early return to normalcy. Shy, irritated, and still a little scared. Thankful. Relieved.)

The silence continues for a few moments. Then, Mustang is surprised by a weak attempt a throat-clearing. He looks back down at Fullmetal and is surprised to see a small, but genuine, smile gracing the kid’s features.

He mouths two words – _‘Thank you’_ – then pauses for a moment before adding what Mustang assumes could only be one phrase: _‘Bastard Colonel.’_


End file.
